Slaven Crnić: A Past Future. (Post-)Yugoslavia in Queer Literature and Arts

While the seemingly straightforward adjective »post-Yugoslav« has been popular across disciplines since the 1990s, what exactly it is that makes something »post-Yugoslav« is still a point of contention. In fact, the »post-Yugoslav« conceptual framework has recently been critically (and occasionally heatedly) reexamined. While some deem its usage indispensable, others see it as imprecise and ideologically biased. This lecture will probe the applicability of the designation of post-Yugoslav« when it comes to contemporary queer literature and arts. Through an array of specific examples, it will explore the ways in which queer literature, visual and performing arts engage with dis-avowed political values and cultural objects, such as Yugoslav-era socialism or the popular culture of the 1990s. In this context, the designation of »post-Yugoslav queer literature and arts« will be seen as a useful framework for understanding a feature widely shared among the region’s queer writers and artists: the tendency to use optics of camp and queer temporality to transform marginalized or ostracized bygone cultural objects and political values into con-temporary sources of personal and political remedy.